I am nothing! If you could know the dream of what I would like to be, you would realize how little I have accomplished.

Chopin was an invalid, as you know, but his music was volcanic.

Intellectual isolation always follows commercial isolation.

Music is the only art that actually lives.

If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience notices it.

If I don't practise for one day, I know it; if I don't practise for two days, the critics knows it; if I don't practise for three days, the audience knows it.

The genius is the man who has genuine and deep human relations with others, who does not cut himself off in the search for originality, but who realizes the value of artistic tradition.